Thought it was aimed at push notifications. Would hate to have video interrupted by off stage noises...

The switch on the side was always intended to be a mute switch - it seems the use of it as an orientation switch in IOS 3.x was due to the software orientation switch not being ready until IOS 4.x from what I can tell.
The Mute switch only mutes systems sounds like notifications etc. It doesn't mute music, videos etc. although I would love it to be a 'mute all' switch so if I fire up the iPad with some late night reading, I can flip this switch and be safe in the knowledge that some app won't fire out audio and wake Mrs Donka! Please Apple, change this to a mute all.

Strange! Mutes games, but not radio app, mutes CNN but not Sky News or iPlayer.
As an Apple virgin, I imagine they will in due course sort this out, but how would they do that? Would that be another download or is that a really stupid question?

Heh probably, but don't sweat it.

There's probably a very good reason for it but we haven't been told yet.

After calling tech support, I feel like a goose... All my problems were self imposed... Screen orientation (lock) & mute function is really neat!

HiNet